Founded in 1979, October Gallery, in central London, exhibits innovative, contemporary art from around the world. For over 40 years, October Gallery has pioneered the development of the Transvangarde - the trans-cultural avant-garde.

El Anatsui

An alumnus of the College of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana, El Anatsui (b. 1944) is one of the most exciting international contemporary artists of our time. Throughout a distinguished forty-year career as both sculptor and teacher – he was Professor of Sculpture and Departmental Head at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka – El Anatsui has addressed a vast range of social, political and historical concerns, and embraced an equally diverse range of media and processes. His sculptures have been collected by major international museums, from the British Museum, London to the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Guggenheim, Abu Dhabi; Osaka Foundation of Culture, Osaka; Museum of Modern Art, New York and many other prestigious institutions besides.

His installations have provoked wide international attention in recent years, with institutions and audiences fascinated by these sumptuous, mesmerising works made from thousands of aluminium bottle tops. During the Venice Biennale, in 2007, he transformed the facade of the Palazzo Fortuny by draping it in a shimmering wall sculpture. In 2010, two major touring shows of his work opened on opposite sides of the world: El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You About Africa at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada (organised by the Museum for African Art, New York) and A Fateful Journey: Africa in the Works of El Anatsui at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan. As part of the 2012 Paris Triennale, he transformed the entire facade of Le Palais Galleria, Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris with his striking work, Broken Bridge. In 2013, the Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA, exhibited the touring solo exhibition, Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, presented the artist with the prestigious Charles Wollaston Award for his work, TSIATSIA – searching for connection, 2013, which covered the entire facade of the RA building. The major survey exhibition Five Decades, which in 2015 premiered at The School (Jack Shainman), Kinderhook, New York, toured to Carriageworks (in association with Sydney Festival), Sydney, Australia, in 2016. A major new work Kindred Viewpoints enveloped the facade of El Badi Palace during the 2016 Marrakech Biennale.

In 2014, he was made an Honorary Royal Academician as well as elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2015 he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 56th International Art Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia – All the World’s Futures and in 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Cape Town.This year he was awarded the prestigious Praemium Imperiale Award for Sculpture.El Anatsui has been represented by October Gallery since 1993.

In an interview with October Gallery, EL Anatsui noted, “The amazing thing about working with these metallic ‘fabrics’ is that the poverty of the materials used in no way precludes the telling of rich and wonderful stories.

El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote To You About Africa, organised by the Museum for African Art, New York, USA; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada; Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts; Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

2010-11

A Fateful Journey, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka; The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama; Tsuruoka Art Forum, Tsuruoka Art; The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan

245th Summer Exhibition, installation of sculpture on the façade of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK ArtZuid 2013, Amsterdam, The NetherlandsMasters of the Transvangarde, October Gallery, London, UKEarth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., USA

The World Belongs to You, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy ARS 11, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, FinlandHunters and Gatherers: The Art of Assemblage, Sotheby’s, New York, USA The Splendour of Truth, The Beauty of Charity, The Vatican, Rome, Italy

AKA ’87, The Presidential Hotel, Enugu; National Gallery of Crafts and Design, Lagos, NigeriaOriginal Prints from the 3rd Nsukka Workshop, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Goethe-Institut, Lagos, Nigeria